Category: Bad Stuff

Broken phones, nuisance calls, security, bad stuff

Categories
bitcoin Business online safety piracy

Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

two_pence Mt Gox is dead. Apparently. More than 750,000 Bitcoins missing, so they say.  Rumour mill an’ all.

Careless that, or criminal. Either way someone has lost a lot of Bitcoin (Mt Gox has previous – see here from 2011).

Now could be a good time to invest in Bitcoin. The price has dropped considerably. Mind you anytime could be a bad time to invest in Bitcoin, unless you make a living being successful at roulette.

I’m thinking of buying one. Just the one. Just so’s I can feel part of the action. It won’t be a big investment. I once knew a bookie in my local pub. He had a pitch at Market Rasen races and at one race meet I put a two pound bet on a horse with him. He accused me of trying to manipulate the odds with heavy betting 🙂

bitcoin market priceCurrent price is £295 or so (it was earlier this pm – changed already by the time of publication – gotta move faster – see preev.com). That’s a new washing machine, or simlar. Mrs Davies would say that a new washing machine would be more useful and not depreciate quite as quickly as Bitcoin has over the last 24 hours.

Wives just don’t understand do they?

I’d like to bet that many of the readers of this blog are multi-millionaires thanks to Bitcoin and  here’s me still trying to hack out a living writing blog posts. It could be the answer.

Mind you I do occasionally buy a lottery ticket and I honestly can’t remember the last time I got a single number right. I think there is something going on there. Must be.

I’ll keep you posted.

Mt Gox is dead. Long live Mt Gox.

PS I realise I’m taking a risk publishing a picture of a two pence piece but I think it is in the public interest to do so. The two pence photographed is worth two pence and will be used as part of a transaction to buy something – box of matches1 etc. It may not be possible to do this with a bitcoin.

1 can you actually buy anything for two pence anymore?

Categories
Business online safety Regs social networking

Edward Snowden – Facebook charges its users!

Facebook charges its users!

A dramatic byline….. ostensibly it hasn’t broken its vow that it is “free to use and always will be“, and there isn’t a pay-wall being erected around it. That said, with the hefty price tag it just paid for WhatsApp, it may well have to consider things!.

But Facebook has always charged, as has Twitter, and Google and so on. So it hasn’t had a Direct Debit mandate, but they have taken something you have freely offered in return for perpetual use of the site for free, and have marketed that. Your most valuable information; your preferences, your search history, your favourite band, most checked in pub, your beach snaps, all of this adds up to a data-miner’s paradise.

A quick calculation on Facebook’s market capitalisation just prior to the

Continue reading “Edward Snowden – Facebook charges its users!”
Categories
Business online safety Regs

To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter

An eagle eyed reader spotted this little piece of bemusement from Vodafone.

decapitationHis newsfeed this morning had an interesting enough looking headline “Labour to launch decapitation strategy against Clegg” meaning that they were going to have a go at unseating him in the next general election.

vodafone_filteringInterest piqued, the reader clicked on the link only to come up against Vodafone’s content filter.

What was the content one wonders that made the Vodafone filter kick in? The reference to decapitation? Or did it find the politics of the host blog politicalbetting offensive.

Points arise:

Continue reading “To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter”
Categories
Business security spam UC

Selling your contact information – who does it?

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to in life post Timico is having a cleaner inbox. I don’t get spam using Gmail and the platform very kindly filters most commercial mails in to a tab called “Promotions”.

This I love. I do look occasionally and note that the mails are typically from rewards membership accounts and their ilk. I am ok with this.

My Timico mailbox, RIP, used to get tons of unwanted rubbish from companies I had no interest in and who

Continue reading “Selling your contact information – who does it?”
Categories
End User piracy

Stolen Oyster Card frozen

pirate flagHad my Oyster card stolen yesterday. No idea how. Might have dropped it but I don’t know. I only found out last night. Tried logging online but couldn’t get in to the account and because it used an old timico email address I couldn’t do a reset.

This morning I tried again and hey presto got the username and password combo right. I’ve changed both. The fact that I could guess the password was no good.

I noted that the b”£$%^d who stole the card had used around ten quid’s worth of credit. Fortunately there is no means for them to automatically top up the card and I’ve locked it now anyway.

I could get the stolen credit reimbursed but

Continue reading “Stolen Oyster Card frozen”
Categories
End User online safety piracy

Indian call centre scammers need to up voice quality

pirate flagYou see before you a partially disappointed man. Not very disappointed. Just partially so.

I’m waiting in this morning so that there is someone in the house when two parcels get redelivered. The phone rang. It was an Indian call centre scammer.

I was only recently pontificating on the fact that I didn’t seem to have had many scam calls of late. This in particular is disappointing because the post about the 08000641087 scam number is amongst the most popular on this blog. Lots of annoyed folk out there.

So the phone rang and I was instantly excited.

Continue reading “Indian call centre scammers need to up voice quality”
Categories
End User online safety social networking

eTagged.me – you are a pest & @LinkedIn should know better

eTaggedmeI got an email from LinkedIn saying ‘ “xxxxx” (name withheld)  has requested to provide them with some feedback based on their personality using the short link below’.

Apparently eTagged.me, according to them, is “a new way to identify yourself to the world including ratings & reviews from your peers that shows how awesome you are”.

They look dodgy to me. A link was very handily provided for me to unsubscribe from further emails. This link seemed to be from eTagged me but I had to insert my LinkedIn password to unsubscribe. !!!!!

This is totally outrageous. I never asked them for the email in the first place and they want me to give them my LinkedIn credentials to stop them sending me any more junk.

I’ve reported them to LinkedIn. I also looked at their website. There is an email address but I’m blowed if I’m going to send them an email to complain. There needs to be a way within LinkedIn of blocking this stuff but I can’t immediately see it.

Beware of eTagged.me. We don’t need any new social media platforms thanks a lot. At the very least they need to change the way they work so that people can block them without having to enter secure credentials that are none of their business. I realise that access to the large databases that are LinkedIn et al is an attractive proposition but on this occasion they didn’t get it right.

Rant over. I must be going through an angry phase – just stay away from me for a while – okaaay 🙂

ttfn

Wasn’t so long ago that someone stole 6.5 millions LinkedIn passwords – here.

Categories
End User piracy

LBM Direct Marketing up to their antics again – 08000641087

pirate flagFunny what data you can gather from search results. Google, GCHQ et al know everything. I can only tell you that LBM Direct Marketing must have a campaign going again.

I know this because visitor numbers to the blog post what I wrote on their pesky telemarketing activities have shot up. 883 visits in the last few days. My own little efforts at big data eh? (or words to that effect). The number of people searching for that term (08000641087) must be a small fraction of those who have been called.

I wonder who they are working for this time. Pests.

Categories
End User piracy

Pirate Bay blocking order lifted in Netherlands

pirate flagAn appeal court in the Netherlands has lifted the court order instructing ISPs to block access to the Pirate Bay website. Apparently the level of filesharing traffic has risen since the ban which was seen to be totally ineffective.

This should come as no surprise. In fact on this occasion I don’t mind telling you I told you it wouldn’t work. It would be quite interesting to see how the Pirate Bay usage has changed since our own court orders were put in place here in the UK.

If anyone has the data let us have a link.

ciao.

Categories
Engineer security servers

Lloyds Bank – 2 out of 7 servers “down”

Problems with Lloyds Bank & TSB cashpounts attributed to failiure of 2 out of 7 servers by BBC.

Interesting article on BBC Radio 4 Today Prog this morning. Apparently last night some Lloyds & TSB customers were unable to use their debit cards for a couple of hours or so. Not me. I was at home.

The point is that apparently two servers were down. It’s a bit of an eyebrow raiser that this could happen with just two servers going down. Doesn’t sound like good capacity planning. I’d have thought they’d be load balanced with plenty of headroom on each server that would allow for such an eventuality.

Can’t be right unless there’s something specific re security for such systems that doesn’t allow them to do that.

One wonders what would have caused two servers to go down at the same time. Rack outage maybe? No generator bup? Suspect we won’t find out and I’m only mildly interested.

The other observation relates to that comment by the reporter re people at petrol stations whose cards were rejected.  Unless they had alternative means of payment they had to wait at the petrol station until someone came along and paid for them.

Petrol stations in my experience can fail over to a manual card swipe using old fashioned slips of paper. Maybe not all of them. Or maybe because the card processing system was not “down” generally the specific Lloyds customers weren’t trusted.

That’s all.

PS no such thing as 100% uptime – see this post on Vodafone outage

Categories
broken gear Engineer gadgets

External USB sound card to replace broken laptop card

usb_sound_cardPicked up this cracking little USB sound card off eBay for less than two quid, including postage and packaging. It’s for my old Dell laptop. I knocked it off the arm of the settee a year or so back. It fell on the floor and rammed the headphone socket right inside the machine. Ah well.

I’ve lived without sound since then but whilst I rarely use the Dell any it has become Mrs Davies’ machine since hers played up and it seems reasonable for her to have sound, especially for the price.

I’ve only tested it on some old vid on YouTube and it did sound tinny but that might well have been down to my choice of content rather than the actual sound quality. For two quid who is going to complain anyway.

That’s all. Two quid!!?? I’m going to plug in a set of speakers for her so that she can listen to her favourite radio programmes.

Tbh she rarely uses a laptop anymore, It’s all iPad. I’d tell you what make the USB thing is but I can’t tell from the packaging. It looks pretty generic. Made in China, fair play.

Categories
End User security

Intro & Password Pain by @LindseyAnnison

I’m grateful to Tref for leaving the corporate treadmill and embarking on this new venture.  Although he never appeared to hate, or even dislike, his day job as some others in the industry seem to (in fact, having seen him in situ in the Timico offices several times, he seemed to positively revel in it!), I am very much looking forward to his posts, especially about monetising this blog, and hence the new company. So, I would first like to say thanks for the chance to guest post and wish him the best of success.

I guess I’d better briefly introduce myself. I have campaigned for ubiquitous, affordable and, in particular, rural broadband since the mid 90s when I was trying to set up my Internet marketing business in the Yorkshire Dales.  I met Tref because he was kind enough to allow a bunch of broadbandits to invade the top floor of Timico for a colloquium a few years ago. I am currently trying to take a break from all things broadband to write more books (I have so far published six), an internet marketing course for SMEs, and to get back to my core skillset (Internet Marketing and Web PR), and my own business which keeps being put on the backburner because of the broadband shenanigans in the UK. I’m a guest/ghost blogger on many sites, copywriter, occasional ranter, and can be found on Twitter. Usually late at night.

I thought I would begin my guest posting with a tale of woe – the Absolute Pain of Passwords. Is it just me or do others have this problem too?

I have several devices – an iOS smartphone (the iThing), an Apple tablet (iThing2), a Windows laptop, a Remembering PasswordsPC (that can boot into either Ubuntu or two different versions of Windows) and a Mac Mini. That makes a total of seven separate devices. And then there are the many times I might need to use someone else’s device eg whilst travelling, when my battery is flat, cybercafe etc.

If I go to log in to, say, a social media account on one of these devices, and I cannot remember my password, then I either have to find one of the other devices that is logged into the account – which can be a pain if I am not in their location – or, and this is where the nightmare begins, hit “Forgot password”.

This action then kickstarts a chain reaction of marginal chaos.

Continue reading “Intro & Password Pain by @LindseyAnnison”
Categories
Business internet online safety piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

An evening with Julian Huppert MP – Internet Hero #fundraiser

julian_huppert_mpI’m not in the least bit political. If I get involved on the periphery of Parliamentary discussions and debate it is because I occasionally see MPs trying to implement legislation that doesn’t make sense in our modern internet based world. This is often because MPs have so much information thrown t them that they have to resort to keeping ideas simple so that they can get their brain around them.

Unfortunately when it comes to legislation that touches the internet, and by default touches those of us whose livelihood depends in one way or another (an increasingly large cohort of people) on the internet, the simplistic view often taken by MPs is often at odds with the practical workings of internet technologies.

We end up spending a lot of time and money fending off such legislation, more often than not pretty successfully but usually after great effort and pain. This is because it takes an age for people (MPs) who because of the practicalities of their job have to look at complex issues very simplistically.

I’m all for keeping things simple (stupid) but we also need people in our Parliament who can get their brain around the complexities associated with the internet. What to the layman is a simple network that “just works” is in reality a hugely complex ecosystem. In fact the complex issues faced by MPs often extend to non-technical considerations such as the privacy of the individual In reality it is difficult to separate the technical issues from the non technical as they feed off each other.

One of the few Members of Parliament who does understand these issues is Dr Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge. His background is research science at Cambridge University. Julian has taken a very active participation in internet and technology related debates in the House of Commons and was one of the leading opponents of the Digital Economy Act that was (outrageously in many people’s view) rushed through in the dying days of the last Labour government.

Because of his work supporting the internet industry, last summer Julian was awarded the Internet Hero Award at the annual ISP Association Awards dinner. Since then he served on the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at the Draft Data Communications Bill (Snooper’s Charter) and was highly influential in the decision making that lead to the Bill being killed it off for this Parliament.

We need to keep MPs like Julian in the House of Commons. He is good for the internet. He understands the issues. MPs need to raise a lot of cash to pay for their election campaign. I assume the next election will be in 2015 but much will go on between now and then.

I have agreed to help Julian by organising a fundraising dinner on his behalf. He is a Liberal Democrat but this is not a party political issue. In fact this is a technology blog not a political blog.

Whatever your political beliefs, if you work in a business, or maybe it is your business, that makes its living from the internet it is in your interest to support Julian.

So this is an invitation to you to a Fundraising Dinner entitled “An  Evening with Julian Huppert – Internet Hero”. This dinner, on Tuesday 25th February,  is a sit down job at the National Liberal Club in Whitehall – a totally high class environment if you’ve never been.

At £300 a head this isn’t a cheap do but we have to remember that the idea is to help raise funds to get Julian re-elected. We won’t be stinting on the quality of the food and drink in any case.

You will be in the company of 49 other influential people from the internet industry so it will also be a great night for networking. We shouldn’t forget that it will also be an opportunity to share your thoughts with Julian.

Click here to find out more or drop me a line if you want to talk about it.

That’s all for now. Please help if you can.

Categories
Apps broken gear Cloud End User

Breaking news – Kodak Hero 7.1 printer is broken again – error code 3527

My Kodak Hero 7.1 All in one printer is broken again! Printers have always been a bit tempermental haven’t they?

I bought this one on 21st January 2012. At the time Kodak were going into administration. The printer looked a good deal so I also bought the 3 year “Instant Replacement” warrantee as a bit of a guarantee against things going tits up with the printer manufacturing.

On 5th January 2013 I took it back to PC World. The print head carriage was jammed and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

Today I’m taking the replacement back to PC World. Identical problem. Kodak’s support pages unhelpfully suggest I remove anything that might be jamming the print head otherwise to get in touch with their support (presumably not free).

It’s OK. I can take this second Kodak Hero 7.1 back to PC world and swap it for another. I quite like it’s functionality. Cloud printing etc. Bit of a nuisance having to go through the whole registration process again but hey.

I paid £129 for the original printer and £32 for the extended WHATEVER HAPPENS warranty. £129 a year for a new printer is not good. £161 for a new printer every year for three years isn’t so bad  I guess.

PS before anyone says anything trefor.net is a paperless business but my family isn’t – homework etc.

Categories
Business online safety security spam

Gmail update – Google+ comment

gmail_updateGot an email yesterday from Google about a change to Gmail. Everyone probably got the same mail. Certainly the mainstream media made big news of it, in the tech sections. When you are sending an email from a gmail account you will now be offered Google+ account holders as recipients of the mail.

One site, whose name is oft misspelled, even published a post on how to change your settings to stop people from being able to contact you via Google+. This would appear to me to be a blatant sop to search engine rankings – a big part of the email I got was all about explaining exactly this so the repetition of this info seemed particularly unnecessary. Whoever gets news out first attracts the visitors so it’s dog eat dog out there in the www.

Anyway “starting this week, when you’re composing a new email, Gmail will suggest your Google+ connections as recipients, even if you haven’t exchanged email addresses yet. Your email address isn’t visible to your Google+ connections until you send them an email, and their email addresses are not visible to you until they respond.”

I’ve tried but I can’t seem to get it to work. I guess “this week” must mean “next week” or at least from Monday onwards.

If someone from outside your Google+ Circles emails you then the mail gets filtered into the “Social” tab in your inbox. In my case this means it is unlikely to get read because I never look in that tab. I don’t look in the “promotions” tab either unless I’m expecting a particular mail – eg a password reset.

The tone of the online commentary about this “feature” is in the vein of “Google trying to increase/stimulate Google+ usage” and also all about privacy.

In my mind this is a very useful feature. I want people to be able to get hold of me. The principle is no different to your telephone number. Unless you want to be ex-directory anyone can look up your number. Of course there is the concern about spam but Google has a fantastic antic-spam engine and if it turns out to be “legitimate” spam from a business then this gets filtered into the “promotions” tab as previously mentioned. You can also label a sender as being a spammer which I frequently do if the email addresses me as “Hi”.

So all in all I think this is good. Except as I mentioned it doesn’t seem to work for me! That’s all folks.

Categories
Business online safety spam

Google blocking Microsoft Office365 mail as spam

I note from Twitter this morning that Google is blocking some emails from Microsoft Office365  to Gmail recipients as spam.

The message reads: [157.56.116.103 1] Our system has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your IP address 

I note also that the ip address is ascribed to AS8075 (ours is AS8607  fwiw – pretty contemporary) otherwise known as Microsoft Corporation. This address has been identified in the past as a source of spam – check out Project Honeypot. That link also displays some example mail messages that are clearly spam – “loans available”, “Attention ATM card beneficiary” and so on.

I sense a wry smile as you read this. Global commercial internet wars! “Google tries to shut down Microsoft email”. I suspect though that there will be no malice aforethought here. Managing mail platforms is a 24×7 job. As an email service provider you can’t afford for your server IP addresses to be blacklisted because of some customer generating spam. It might not even be that customer’s fault. It’s almost certainly an infected PC.

spam attacksMicrosoft will have a huge team of people managing their email platform. That spam was identified is also a testament to the Google anti spam capability which is widely considered to be the best in the game.

The pic inset is an old screenshot depicting incoming spam attacks – the legitimate mail has had to be amplified x10 so that you can actually see it. Fortunately the vast majority of the spam never makes it to the desktop.

IP addresses blacklisted as a source of spam don’t usually stay on the blacklist for very long – 24 hours maybe but it can certainly be a nuisance for those trying to send or waiting to receive emails.

I don’t think email has a long term future in any case or at least it is going to have niche applications (spam etc :)), but lets not get into a lengthy debate.

Ciao

Categories
Business Regs spam

A cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up with the TPS

Cold call from Ideal Solar Solutions to someone signed up for TPS

Ideal Solar Solutions Ltd are based in Derby. They rang me at 10.27 this morning to try and sell me something, or at least to say that they were in the area on Monday and it would be good if they could arrange to come around to see me.

Actually they wanted to see both meself and Anne. Experience must tell them that decisions on big capital spend items such as solar panels are not made alone.

Unfortunately for them Anne was not around but also unfortunately I recorded the whole conversation – just to make sure that I got the name of the company right etc.

Their website is here. It’s got all their contact details.

Thing is they shouldn’t be calling me. I told them that I was signed up to the Telephone Preference Service and that I would be reporting them to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

They and their ilk are a blight on society. I realise that they are trying to earn a quid but don’t they understand how difficult it is to make sales with cold calling like this. Far better they did a sensible Google Adwords campaign and attracted people actually looking for solar panels. It would meant that the poor telephone sales girl who was clearly reading from a not particularly well written script didn’t have to endure days of fruitless calling speaking to people who didn’t want to talk to her and  who might report her employers to the ICO.

When calling me they withheld their number but if you need solar panels you can call them on 0844 472 2941. It’s on their website. Give em a ring. They haven’t asked you to call but I’m sure they won’t mind.

I note that they carry the logo of the CPA (Consumer Protection Association). The CPA needs to update its Code of Practice, assuming they have one – I couldn’t find it on their site, to include not calling people who are signed up with the TPS.

The recording of the call is here if you are interested. They didn’t ask me to record it but there again I didn’t ask them to call me. It’s a bit noisy but hey… I was recording off the speakerphone of a dect phone. You do hear the occasional ping – it’s my Chromebook – I was in the middle of a hangout with my daughter.

Categories
Business spam Weekend

Tesco spam – more expensive than ham!

Tesco spam phone calls

Tesco spam more expensive than ham.

It’s the weekend so I thought we’d have a bit of fun. Just been to Tesco to get a few staples – bread, milk, custard. As ever I left with far more in my trolley than what was on my list.

Passing the tinned meats section I spotted some spam! I haven’t had any spam since I was a kid, other than the crap that gets caught in my spam filter. When I was a kid spam was the everyday meat “replacement” for those of us who lived in shoeboxes on the central reservation of the M4 (etc). Now spam is priced as if it were luxury goods!

The two pics inset show the price of spam and the price of tinned ham on the shelf next to it. Spam is £1.99 for 340g (58.6pence per 100g) whilst the tinned ham is only £1.89 for the same weight.

spam at TescoThe ham doesn’t look particularly appetising mind you but there again neither does the spam. I still bought a tin.

Tesco spam – just about acceptable but only for old times’ sake.

Having bought the tin I am willing to let someone else have it if you can persuadeham me your need is greater than mine. I will need a postal address. Addresses that don’t mention shoeboxes will be ineligible.

PS fwiw Tesco have 25% off wine if you buy six or more bottles. We have a party coming up so I bought a few bottles of Heisdieck Monopole blue top. The bottles were down from £30 to £15 with a further 25% off making them £11.25 each! At that price I don’t even have to like the stuff.

Loads of spam related stuff on this site – follow the spam category here.

Categories
End User online safety security

Eventbrite security really on the ball – Adobe hack

Had an email from Eventbrite yesterday with the subject “Keeping your account protected”. Fair play to them. Eventbrite have looked at the 3 million user name email addresses recently hacked at Adobe and cross referred them to any in use on the Eventbrite platform.

They have then let the Eventbrite users with these identical email addresses subs. I was one of them.

Most of my passwords are different and far too complicated to remember even. I didn’t even know I had an Adobe account. I checked. I did. I changed the password.

I also checked for any other account with the same email/password combo. There were two. They had not been used for some time (years maybe) but I changed each password.

One of the sites was Kodak. It took me some time to find out how to login on the Kodak website and I found I was locked out of that account!! Had someone tried to login a few times and locked the account? (could have been me – I dunno).

I also got a message saying “NOTE: Your MySupport account is different from your KODAK Store, KODAK Gallery, KODAK Pulse Digital Frame, Tips & Projects Exchange, and Google Cloud Print™ accounts.”

Goodness knows how I’m supposed to figure out/remember which is the right one to log into. Why can’t they have one login for everything?

Anyway well done to Eventbrite – this is great customer service. I looked but saw no email from Adobe letting me know my details had been compromised. Might have been caught in a spam filter I guess.

Tata.

Categories
Business online safety

51 years old and still single? Well yes and no Facebook.

facebook_adI’d be interested to see if anyone else gets this ad in their Facebook timeline. There’s no denying I am 51 years old – this Facebook knows.

Facebook also knows I’m married mind you and very happily so I hasten to add.

It’s one of those links you daren’t click on in case there’s some malware behind it though one would think that Facebook would have that covered. The photo of the girl is very small but she could well be one of the 160 “mature” women referred to. I suppose. I’d be surprised if this website had that many female customers in Lincoln though. Even if we take in the surrounding area.

I wonder whether the business model works. Suppose it must. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this ad. I guess Facebook will take anyone’s money.

Ciao.

Categories
Engineer online safety

More on Team Cymru

team cymruSeeing as  I mentioned Team Cymru (Teem Come-ree) yesterday I just noticed that I’ve had their quarterly newsletter (Cymru Quarterly) on my desk since June. This is a personalized high quality newsletter that I specifically signed up for. I remember when doing so they asked me a second time whether I really wanted the newsletter in hard copy. I rarely read hard copy but in their case I did so I’ve been getting it through the post.

I’ve just noticed that on the cover of this edition they ask me whether I want to continue receiving the newsletter. In order to do so I have to click on a link and fill out a survey.

This is pretty cool and efficient. I get a fair bit of junk mail/magazines that I never look at and which are a total waste of space (and money). I’m not going to carry on with the hard copy. I follow them on twitter @teamcymru and am happy that I get my news in that way and save them some cash.

I wonder if they will be supporting Wales v South Africa at the Millenium Stadium on Saturday 🙂 They are based in Florida mind you. I expect they are so busy they will have forgotten the match is on…

Categories
Engineer peering security

Team Cymru – the correct pronounciation

On a completely different note whilst I was at the Euro-IX conference last week someone gave a talk that included something about Team Cymru. Team Cymru are a top bunch of guys in the cyber security space.

However there is something that urgently needs addressing about the organisation and that is how you pronounce their name. I’ve been hearing Team Kim-roo which is understandable but totally incorrect. I’m sure that the good folk at Team Cymru will not mind me saying that the correct way to pronounce the name is Come-ree. It is the way that the Welsh would say it.

There. I’ve got that one off my chest. Cymru am byth!

Categories
End User piracy

Virgin media filter block post resurgence in popularity

Last year following the court order imposed on the large consumer ISPs requiring them to “block” access to Pirate Bay I wrote a blog post outlining how to bypass the Virgin Media filters and discussing the futility of the court order. I also recently added that the same methods were usable to bypass the BT, Sky and TalkTalk filters.

This week we have seen another twenty or so more domains added to the list of proscribed sites. Yesterday the daily visitor rate doubled to over 1,500 uniques and the trend is continuing today. This blog is one of tens of thousands of sites telling you how to bypass these filters so the total number of people looking for the information must be very large.

I’m not condoning copyright infringement – I’ve written an ebook myself and would be dismayed to think that people would not want to recompense me for my hard work. I am however saying that the blocking order is a waste of time.

Ciao bebe…

Categories
Business scams

From +447456272496 Please call 08445718136 quoting your reference 776811

llanfairpwllATTENTION! We have tried to contact you, It is important we speak to you today. Please call 08445718136 quoting your reference 776811. Thank You.

Gah this is sooo frustrating. The person didn’t say who it was sending the text and I don’t have the number in my address book. What am I going to do now? It will be so embarrassing if I ring and get their name wrong – I don’t like to just say “hi” do you? It gives a far better impression if you can call them by name. I realise that they didn’t use my name either but that’s understandable in a text message isn’t it? Using my full name, Huw Trefor Davies would take up far too much space though they could have just said Tref and I would have been fine with that. Maybe they didn’t think of that.

Perhaps their name is a really long one that would take up most of the message – like Mr Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It’s plausible, isn’t it? People do get called after place names, maybe they were born there or summat!

I don’t think I’ll bother.

Categories
Business online safety Regs security

Government Minister responsible for leaking secrets to enemy spies?

I note that old Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, has taken his communications services into his own hands and  installed a WiFi connection. The Telegraph article doesn’t go into any great detail as to what the WiFi is connected to. You get the impression he has ordered a separate broadband line to his office.

I was pondering on a comment on this article. Should we the great unwashed have a view on this? On the one hand if he is just using the WiFi to hook up his iPad etc just to catch up with his pals on Facebook and Twitter what’s the harm in that? I’m not sure he uses Twitter mind – I could only find a couple of parody accounts in his name. Maybe he uses an alias. I digress.

On the other hand he could be opening up the whole government communications infrastructure to foreign spies hell bent on infiltration and bad things. FM could be the cause of us having enemy sleepers (is that the correct terminology, it’s been a while since I read Le Carre – curse you #Twitterthiefoftime) deep into Whitehall ready to spring into action when the activation code word is broadcast on the BBC Radio4 Today programme or in a classified ad in The Financial Times (or Telegraph).

It might be argued that all the security that makes Government systems so clunky as described in the Telegraph article is all a waste of time anyway when it seems inevitable that Edward Snowden will one day leak all the secrets. We may well find that most of the info is routine stuff like what is Francis Maude’s favourite sandwich filling. Could of course be of use to an enemy seeking to poison him. Look out for yourself Francis. Take care now.

Whatever happens I’m all in favour of reducing the cost of Government, especially if he is paying for the broadband himself which I doubt but don’t know really. If we the unclean are paying lets hope he got a good deal – 50% off for the first six months or something like that. Maybe even unlimited calls to geographic numbers bundled in.

It’s not a Friday afternoon but I feel a competition coming on here. What keyword will our fiendish enemies use for a wakeup call and where will they publish it? It might be a phrase.

“The snow geese have arrived early this winter” is not an eligible entry – that one is too obvious and would immediately put MI5 on the alert. Or is it MI6?

Entries in the comments section please. Winner gets a terrific Timico megamug which they can collect in person at #trefbash2013. As a supplementary question if you want to guess what is FM’s favourite sandwich filling then I may use that as a tiebreaker in the event of a draw.

Your mother wears army boots.

Categories
End User piracy

TV detector vans – the truth

Was listening to the Jeremy Vine show on my way to the shops this lunchtime. They were talking about TV detector vans and were there really such things.
Someone came on an said that he used to drive one but that there was no equipment inside, or at least nothing switched on. The TV license people used to use them to scare people into buying a license and they would have a team of people blitz an area checking on addresses that had not been registered as having a license.

We didn’t have a TV until my oldest son Tom was 13 years old and I do recall a knock on the door once from someone who declared himself to be working for the licensing people. I told him we didn’t have a TV and he went away. Simple as that. Check out my other TV license story (previous story about TV license).

Wind the clock forward a few years and one question I have been asked recently is whether you need a TV license to watch TV on tinterweb.

The answer is yes if you’re talking live TV.  However I am not aware that anyone has ever been done for not having a license whilst watching TV in this way.

There are probably two factors in play here. Most people do have a TV license and therefore are already covered. For those rebs that don’t have a license then it isn’t an easy thing to track you down.

The music industry, which is through the Digital Economy Act, going to be sending letters to people it believe has been infringing copyright (ie downloading stuff without paying) tracks down the alleged miscreants from the IP address being used for the torrent. Prior to the DEA it needed a court order to obtain the name and address of the subscriber.

The Licencing Authority can probably source similar information in a similar way from the BBC. It would need separate court orders for Sky, Virgin et al but would find it very difficult to deal with any overseas entity, of which there are many. The effort would have questionable value remembering that the LA doesn’t know who already has a licence and who doesn’t in these circumstances.

This will be an interesting situation to follow as more and more people rely solely on online sources for their media fix.

Tapped and dictated into my SGS4 whilst the boys see if my hard drive really is dead!

Categories
End User online safety piracy scams

Gone phishing

pirate flagHad a wonderful little phishing attempt over the weekend that I feel compelled to share with you. I wonder how many people got this one and what its success rate will be. I imagine these guys are running a business with a dashboard and KPIs. There must presumably be a ROI for them to bother.

They do need a graduate entry scheme though or to employ some former civil servants to get the lingo right because the construction of the email isn’t totally convincing. Did anyone else get this one? I would say “bless em” if they weren’t such thieving b@$%@&^%.

DIRECT GOV

LOCAL OFFICE No. 3819

TAX CREDIT OFFICER: Rodney Williams

COUNCIL TAX REFUND ID NUMBER: 983258661

REFUND AMOUNT: 324.39 GBP

Dear Applicant,

Unless expressly authorised by us, any further dissemination or distribution of this email or its attachments is prohibited.

I am sending this email to announce: After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 274.39 GBP

The dispute follows miscalculations of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) liabilities last year, which DIRECT GOV originally also denied when reported in this space but later admitted affected millions of people. You can now reclaim your over paid tax now by complete the tax return form attached to this message.

After completing the form, please submit the form by clicking the SUBMIT button on form and allow us 5-9 business days in order to process it.

Our head office address can be found on our web site at DIRECT GOV

Rodney Williams

DIRECT GOV Credit Office

Preston

COUNCIL TAX REFUND ID: UK983258661-HMRC

DIRECT GOV denies profiting from tax refund delays which leading accountants claim are becoming more widespread and make taxpayers wait months to get back what they are due.

Copyright 2013, DIRECT GOV UK All rights reserved.

Categories
End User online safety piracy

Credit card – phone line scam from a friend of my sisters on Facebook

pirate_flag_thumbCredit card-phone line scam from a friend of my sisters on Facebook. I’ve just reposted it verbatim as it says everything it needs to say. It does make you wonder what on earth can be done to stop these. If everyone had an intelligent line that allowed you to block number withheld calls that might go some way towards sorting it though scammers would just start using a fake CLI.

An alternative might be to have a voice rec asking you who you wanted to talk to. Anything other than Tref, Anne etc would just go straight to voicemail. Schools should cover this sort of thing in lessons. It goes along with safe internet use.

Anyway the Facebook post is repeated below – the author stated that she wanted it sharing:

 

“Received a phone call from BT, informing me that he was disconnecting me because of an unpaid bill. He demanded payment immediately of £31.00 or it would be £ 118.00 to re-connect at a later date. The guy wasn’t even fazed when I told him I was with Virgin Media, allegedly VM have to pay BT a percentage for line rental! I asked the guy’s name – he gave me the very ‘English’ John Peacock with a very ‘African’ accent – & phone number -0800 0800 152.

Obviously the fellow realized I didn’t believe his story, so offered to demonstrate that he was from BT. I asked how & he told me to hang up & try phoning someone – he would disconnect my phone to prevent this. AND HE DID !! My phone was dead – no engaged tone, nothing – until he phoned me again.

Very pleased with himself, he asked if that was enough proof that he was with BT. I asked how the payment was to be made & he said credit card, there & then. I said that I didn’t know how he’d done it, but I had absolutely no intention of paying him, I didn’t believe his name or that he worked for BT.

He hung up. I dialed 1471 – number withheld I phoned his fictitious 0800 number – not recognized. So I phoned the police to let them know. I wasn’t the first! It’s only just started apparently, but it is escalating. Their advice was to let as many people as possible know of this scam.

The fact that the phone does go off would probably convince some people it’s real, so please make as many friends & family aware of this. How is it done? This is good but not that clever. He gave the wrong number – it should have been 0800 800 152 which takes you through to BT Business.

The cutting off of the line is very simple, he stays on the line with the mute button on and you can’t dial out – but he can hear you trying. (This is because the person who initiates a call is the one to terminate it). When you stop trying he cuts off and immediately calls back. You could almost be convinced!

The sad thing is that it is so simple that it will certainly fool many. By the way this is not about getting the cash as this would not get past merchant services – it is all about getting the credit card details which include the security number, to be used for larger purchases.”

The end – for now…

Categories
End User scams

+447456700496 – another accursed intrusive PPI text

I’m sure I’ve signed my mobile up with the Telephone Preference Service but I just got another sms from +447456700496:

“We have been trying to contact you regarding your PPI claim, we now have details of how much you are due, just reply POST and we will posts you a pack out”

Either they are lying or they know that I am due nothing whatsoever in which case you wonder why they would go to the effort of sending me a “pack”.

The power of the www suggests to me that this number is owned by Gladstone Brookes and looking at their website there is indeed a section to fill in to start your PPI miss-sold claim.

I do wonder what sort of individual runs this sort of operation. I also wonder whether, in the light of what I said re the TPS, there is any comeback against them for sending me a text. I will enquire & let you know.

Categories
End User internet online safety

Government surveillance and the issue of personal privacy

The whole issue of government surveillance seems to have reached a crescendo over the last few days. It makes you wonder what the whole Draft Communications Data Bill was all about if “they” can already see everything.

I don’t even know whether encrypted communications are particularly secure anymore. I thought they were but does government secretly have the capability to do really advanced tech that is not in the public domain. Quite probably. We expect it of our own side and hope that we are better than the opposition (whoever they are) – the James Bond movie Skyfall confirmed that it goes on 🙂

I don’t know what to think about the whole privacy thing anymore though. Every online platform seems to know an awful lot about us. Tesco knows the intimate details of my lifestyle from what I buy from it. Google knows absolutely everything about what I’m doing with all my waking hours.

The old joke about a bloke having an affair with his secretary after work and then rubbing snooker chalk on his collar so that his wife would think he’d been playing with his mates doesn’t work any more. She just needs to follow his movements online, or have the difficult conversation about why he switched his phone off for an hour (5mins? 🙂 ) on his way home from work1 .

The Domesday scenario here is that all this information is opened for all to see, accidentally of otherwise. Worst case is that our bank accounts could be emptied.

Aside from ferociously safeguarding your bank password details, though it seems that crooks use back door techniques for breaking into accounts these days rather than brute force password hacks, it seems to me that we need to up the profile of the whole issue of security of our own personal data.

I can’t see how we can stop people/organisations from collecting this data but if they lose it or expose it for others to see then the penalties need to be suitably robust. The world needs to fast track a move to an online security conscious culture.

1 On Sunday I nipped out to the pub for a swift one before dinner and forgot my phone. When I got home there was a text message from my wife asking which pub I was in! Nothing was mentioned though.  I did feel an element of freedom being out without the mobile phone but was also conscious that the clock in the window of acceptability was ticking away.